Trump floats D.C.-style crackdown in other major cities

President Donald Trump on Monday suggested that he may use federal power to enforce a crackdown on crime in major American cities should their governments decline to address the situation.

Trump made the remarks during a press conference at the White House in which he announced his invocation of the D.C. Home Rule Act to assume direct control of the D.C. police in order to enforce a crackdown on homelessness and crime.

"You look at Chicago, how bad it is, you look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad," he said. "New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don't even mention that anymore. They're so far gone. We're not going to let it happen. We're not going to lose our cities over this."

"And this will go further. We're starting very strongly with D.C., and we're going to clean it up real quick," he added.

Notably, Trump also confirmed the deployment of the National Guard to assist local law enforcement. The federalization of the local police was an option due to D.C.'s unique status as a federal city. 

The National Guard would presumably bear the brunt of the burden in other cities. Trump previously deployed the Guard to Los Angeles to quell anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) riots.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent at Just the News. Follow him on X.